McKee v. Dunn

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

NORTHERN DIVISION

DENICE MCKEE, Administratrix for )

the Estate of Dwight Campbell, deceased, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) Case No. 2:22-cv-00647-RAH-CWB

) [WO]

JEFFERSON S. DUNN, et al., )

)

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Dwight Campbell died while in the custody of the Alabama Department of

Corrections (ADOC) at Bullock Correctional Facility (Bullock). According to the

First Amended Complaint, Campbell was bludgeoned and stabbed to death by

another inmate at Bullock while a single, unidentified correctional officer watched

and failed to intervene. (Doc. 30 at 2, 5.) Plaintiff Denice McKee, administratrix

for Campbell’s estate (Estate), claims there was a known and widespread history of

weapons, overcrowding, understaffing, and complicity together with murder, rape,

and assaults at Bullock. (Id. at 2.) In the Estate’s view, ADOC Commissioner

Jefferson Dunn, Bullock Warden Patricia Jones, Bullock Warden David Lamar, and

various “unknown correctional officer(s)” (collectively, the Defendants) failed to

provide adequate staffing and security and to address these dangerous conditions,

culminating in Campbell’s untimely death. (Id. at 2.) The Estate sues Defendants

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating Campbell’s rights under the Eighth and

Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Alabama’s wrongful

death statute, Ala. Code § 6-5-410.

Before the Court are the Defendants’ motions to dismiss. (Docs. 39, 41.) The

motions are fully briefed and ripe for review. For the reasons that follow, the

motions are due to be granted in part and denied in part.

I. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss tests the sufficiency of the complaint

against the legal standard set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, which

requires “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled

to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). When evaluating a motion to dismiss pursuant to

Rule 12(b)(6), the court must take “the factual allegations in the complaint as true

and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Pielage v. McConnell,

516 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2008). However, “the tenet that a court must accept

as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal

conclusions.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual

matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Id. at

678 (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “Determining

whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief . . . [is] a context-specific task

that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common

sense.” Id. at 679. But if the facts in the complaint “do not permit the court to infer

more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has

not ‘shown’—‘that the pleader is entitled to relief,’” and the complaint must be

dismissed. Id. (alteration adopted) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)).

II. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

Dwight Campbell was a prisoner at Bullock Correctional Facility, a short-

staffed correctional facility with a known history of inmate violence, as alleged,

where he was serving time for property-related crimes. (Doc. 30 at 2, 8.) On

November 9, 2020, Campbell “was attacked and murdered by another inmate”—

allegedly because Campbell had been falsely accused of stealing another inmate’s

personal property. (Id. at 2, 9.) The attacker “may have been known to the

Defendants to be both violent and suffering from a mental illness.” (Id. at 9.)

According to the First Amended Complaint, the inmate bludgeoned Campbell in the

head with a stick or pole multiple times, causing injury to Campbell’s head and skull.

(Id.) After Campbell fell to the floor, the inmate pulled out a knife or ice pick and

then began stabbing Campbell in his kidney area and then in his neck. (Id.) While

all of this occurred, “prison staff simply watched or ignored the violent acts taking

place.” (Id. at 2, 9.) That staff consisted of a “single prison guard, assigned to Mr.

Campbell’s cell block, [who] merely watched and did nothing.” (Id. at 5.) That

guard1, who had observed the violence, did not provide Campbell with any

assistance or care, did not notify anyone of Campbell’s injuries, and did not take

Campbell to the infirmary. (Id. at 10.) Instead, he instructed Campbell to go to the

bathroom and clean himself up. (Id. at 11.) Campbell died later that day from his

injuries. (Id.)

At the time of the murder, Jefferson Dunn was the Commissioner of the

ADOC. (Id. at 6.) Patricia Jones and David Lamar were wardens at Bullock. (Id.)

III. DISCUSSION

In the First Amended Complaint (FAC), the Estate sues Dunn, Jones and

Lamar in their individual capacities for violations of Campbell’s constitutional rights

for failing to protect him from harm and for depriving him of treatment for his

serious medical needs after he was assaulted. The Estate also brings a state law

wrongful death claim. See Ala. Code § 6-5-410. The Estate does not identify the

inmate who assaulted and murdered Campbell, nor does it identify the correctional

officer who observed the assault but failed to intervene or address Campbell’s

medical condition or needs. The Defendants move to dismiss, arguing the FAC fails

to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because it constitutes an

impermissible shotgun pleading, fails to plausibly allege any constitutional

1 Prison guard and correctional officer will be used interchangeably.

violations by these Defendants, and is barred by the Defendants’ entitlement to

qualified and state-agent immunity.

A. Shotgun Pleading

The Defendants first argue the FAC is an impermissible shotgun

pleading. They contend the counts themselves are little more than threadbare

recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory

statements, and do not set forth the specific conduct for which each defendant has

been sued. In response, the Estate avers it properly identified which Defendants

were sued for which counts and provided a straightforward basis on which each

claim is grounds for the relief sought.

The Eleventh Circuit has identified four types of shotgun pleadings, but a

pleading need only qualify as one of the four to be considered a shotgun pleading.

The first type is one “containing multiple counts where each count adopts the

allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that

came before . . . .” Weiland v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 792 F.3d 1313, 1321

(11th Cir. 2015). The second type is a pleading “replete with conclusory, vague, and

immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action.” Id. at

1322. The third type is one that does not separate each cause of action or claim for

relief into a separate count. Id. at 1323. And fourth is a pleading “asserting multiple

claims against multiple defendants without specifying which of the defendants are

responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is

brought against.” Id. The intention of avoiding shotgun pleadings is to ensure

defendants have short and plain statements that provide adequate notice of the claims

brought against them. Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1294–95 (11th

Cir. 2018) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)). Further, it avoids an “intolerable toll” on

both the court's docket and the parties involved. See Cramer v. State of Fla., 117

F.3d 1258, 1263 (11th Cir. 1997).

In this instance, while the Court shares the Defendants' concerns about the

Estate grouping all Defendants together in its factual allegations and claims, the

Court does not find the FAC sufficiently qualifies as a shotgun pleading. From the

FAC, sufficient detail is provided for the Court to address the merits of the

Defendants’ substantive arguments for dismissal, which it does.

B. Failure to State a Claim

1. Count One – Eighth Amendment Failure to Protect from Harm

a. Constitutional Violation

In Count One, the Estate sues Dunn, Jones and Lamar under Section 1983 for

their alleged failure to protect Campbell from harm in violation of the Eighth

Amendment. The Estate does not claim these individuals personally observed or

participated in the assault. Instead, the Estate sues them in their individual capacities

on a theory of deliberate indifference to Campbell’s constitutional rights in

performing their roles as persons of authority on the basis that there is a history of

widespread abuse at Bullock that put them on notice of the need to correct the alleged

deprivations, and they failed to do so. They move to dismiss, arguing that the Estate

has failed to plausibly plead an Eighth Amendment failure to protect claim.

Prison officials “have an obligation to protect prisoners from violence

inflicted upon them by other prisoners.” Harrison v. Culliver, 746 F.3d 1288, 1298

(11th Cir. 2014)); see also Dickinson v. Cochran, 833 F. App’x 268, 271 (11th Cir.

2020) (same). “[A] prison official violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition

against cruel and unusual punishment [only] if the official is deliberately indifferent

to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate who suffers injury.” Marbury v.

Warden, 936 F.3d 1227, 1233 (11th Cir. 2019) (citations and quotations omitted).

A prison official’s duty under the Eighth Amendment is to ensure “reasonable

safety,” “a standard that incorporates due regard for prison officials’ ‘unenviable

task of keeping dangerous men in safe custody under humane conditions.’” Farmer

v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 844–45 (1970)(citations omitted). However, “a prison

custodian is not the guarantor of a prisoner’s safety[,]” Purcell ex rel. Estate of

Morgan v. Toombs Cnty., 400 F.3d 1313, 1321 (11th Cir. 2005) (citation omitted),

and “[i]t is not [ ] every injury suffered by one prisoner at the hands of another that

translates into constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for the victim’s

safety,” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834. Prison officials must “take reasonable measures

to guarantee the safety of the inmates,” Hudson, 468 U.S. at 526–27, but there is no

liability for “an official’s failure to alleviate a significant risk that he should have

perceived but did not,” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 838. It is not enough that an inmate

proves that the defendant should have known of the risk, but did not, because actual

knowledge is the key. See, e.g., Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1491 (11th Cir.

1996).

To properly allege deliberate indifference to prisoner-on-prisoner violence, a

plaintiff must allege “(1) subjective knowledge of a risk of serious harm; (2)

disregard of that risk; (3) by conduct that is more than gross negligence.” Goodman

v. Kimbrough, 718 F.3d 1325, 1331–32 (11th Cir. 2013).

A Section 1983 plaintiff must meet an “extremely rigorous” standard in order

to plead a claim against prison officials in their individual capacities. Cottone v.

Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1360 (11th Cir. 2003), abrogated in part on other grounds by

Randall v. Scott, 610 F.3d 701 (11th Cir. 2010). Supervisory prison officials are not

responsible for unconstitutional acts by their subordinates on the basis of respondeat

superior liability or vicarious liability. Id. Rather, officials may only be held liable

in their individual capacities if they personally participated in unconstitutional

conduct or “when there is a causal connection” between their actions (or inactions)

and an alleged constitutional deprivation. Id. “A causal connection can be

established ‘when a history of widespread abuse puts the responsible supervisor on

notice of the need to correct the alleged deprivation, and he fails to do so,’ or when

the supervisor's improper ‘custom or policy resulted in deliberate indifference to

constitutional rights.’” Gonzalez v. Reno, 325 F.3d 1228, 1234 (11th Cir. 2003)

(citation and ellipsis omitted).

Two forms of claims exist to establish a causal connection through a history

of widespread abuse and a failure to protect from harm. First, a plaintiff may allege

that there is such a widespread risk of generalized violence such that “violence was

the norm or something close to it.” Marbury, 936 F.3d at 1234. Second, a plaintiff

may point to “specific features of a facility or its population [that] render[ ] it

particularly violent.” See Dickinson, 833 F. App’x at 275.

The Estate alleges that there is a history of exceptionally widespread and

systemic prisoner-on-prisoner violence at Bullock, where regular murders, rapes,

stabbings and beatings are routine. (Doc. 30 at ¶¶ 10, 44, 46, 55 65.) The Estate

also alleges there was mismanagement, understaffing, overcrowding, inadequate

security, and misclassification of violent and mentally ill prisoners with low-risk

prisoners. (Id. at ¶¶ 10, 44, 53, 59, 66, 67, 68, 71, 83, 93.) And that the problems at

Bullock and other ADOC facilities has triggered an investigation by the Department

of Justice, the result of which has been a scathing report about Bullock and other

ADOC facilities and the filing of a lawsuit by DOJ against the State of Alabama

alleging that the conditions within the ADOC’s prisons, including Bullock,

constitutes an Eighth Amendment violation. (Id. at ¶¶ 12, 48, 51–53, 59–61.) The

Estate further alleges that the prisoner population at Bullock is heavily armed and

not properly screened for contraband, (id. at ¶¶ 39, 44, 56, 57, 58, 72, 73), that

inmates regularly obtain and use weapons, (id. at ¶ 58), that staff fail to properly

respond to inmate threats and violence, (id. at ¶ 74), that non-violent inmates are

housed in close proximity to known violent and mentally ill inmates, (id. at ¶¶ 40,

76), and that the contraband search protocols at Bullock are inadequate, (id. at ¶ 72).

And, the Estate alleges that all Defendants have knowledge of the substantial risk of

serious harm facing inmates at Bullock regarding the chronic assaults. (Id. at ¶¶ 14,

45, 47, 56, 57, 84, 86, 89, 100.) Finally, the Estate similarly alleges that Defendants

have failed to take sufficient action to correct the knowingly dangerous situation.

When confronted with well-pled factual allegations, at the Rule 12 stage, the

Court must assume that the Defendants knew about all the overcrowding,

understaffing, weapons, condition, security issues, housing of violent or mentally ill

inmates in general population or with those who are vulnerable or with low security

risk designations, and pre-attack incidents and statistics. Thus, the Defendants knew

or should have known that Bullock was a place where inmate-on-inmate assaults and

murders were the norm, rather than isolated occurrences, at the time of Campbell’s

death. As the court explained in Wilson v. Dunn,

In Hale v. Tallapoosa County, for example, a plaintiff sued the jail's

supervisor after the plaintiff was beaten in an open cellblock and left

bleeding and unnoticed by guards, for three hours. 50 F.3d 1579 (11th

Cir. 1995). At the summary judgment stage, the Eleventh Circuit found

a genuine issue as to a substantial risk for several reasons: the jail placed

only one jailer on guard duty at a time; the jail failed to train guards;

that the jail was overcrowded; the risk of violence increased during

times of overcrowding; and fights between inmates occurred ‘regularly’

within the two years before the plaintiff's injuries, including some fights

leaving victims in need of medical care. Id. at 1583. The plaintiff also

proved a lack of segregation protocols to isolate violent and non-violent

prisoners.

618 F.Supp.3d 1253, 1270–71 (N.D. Ala. 2022).

The Estate alleges facts showing many of the same or similar problems here.

As in Hale, a correctional officer’s refusal to intervene left Campbell wounded

during and after the attack, despite his calling for help. See also Cottone, 326 F.3d

at 1358 (finding constitutional violation, in part because of guards’ failing to monitor

inmates attentively and playing computer games in the guard stand); Marsh v. Butler

Cnty., Ala., 268 F.3d 1014, 1029 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc), abrogated on other

grounds by Twombly, 550 U.S. at 561–63. The Estate also alleges more egregious

facts than those in Hale, including widespread contraband weapons and a

concentration of violent prisoners with nonviolent prisoners. So, the substantial risk

found in Hale supports a plausible finding of a sufficiently alleged substantial risk

here. Indeed, the allegations of widespread history set out here are not significantly

different from those referenced by other Alabama district courts that concluded a

plaintiff had plausibly alleged an Eighth Amendment failure to protect from harm

claim. See, e.g., Huffman v. Dunn, No. 4:20-cv-01293-CLM, 2021 WL 2533024, at

*8 (N.D. Ala. June 21, 2021); D.S. v. Dunn, et al., No. 2:20-cv-2012-RDP, 2022 WL

1785262, at *9 (N.D. Ala. June 1, 2022); Wilson v. Dunn, 618 F.Supp.3d at 1253.

The Court concludes that the Estate's allegations sufficiently align with other

case decisions illustrating a substantial risk of serious harm. See, e.g., Dickinson,

833 F. App’x at 272–73 (finding plausible Eighth Amendment violation based on

overcrowding, understaffing, failure to segregate violent and nonviolent prisoners,

failure to adequately supervise inmates, and failure to confiscate weapons and

contraband); Bugge v. Roberts, 430 F. App’x 753, 759–61 (11th Cir. 2011). The

Estate has plausibly alleged more than a generalized risk of violence. It has plausibly

alleged the specific features of violence at ADOC correctional facilities in general,

and Bullock specifically, that “render[] it particularly violent,” see Dickinson, 833

F. App’x at 275, or establish that “violence was the norm or something close to it,”

Marbury, 936 F.3d at 1234. Therefore, the Estate has sufficiently pled a plausible

Eighth Amendment failure to protect claim in Count One.

b. Qualified Immunity

The Defendants claim their entitlement to qualified immunity and seek

dismissal of Count One on that basis.

“The defense of qualified immunity completely protects government officials

performing discretionary functions from suit in their individual capacities unless

their conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which

a reasonable person would have known.” Dickinson, 833 F. App’x at 271 (quoting

Caldwell v. Warden, FCI Talladega, 748 F.3d 1090, 1099 (11th Cir. 2014) (citations

and quotations omitted)). “To receive qualified immunity, the government official

must first prove that he was acting within his discretionary authority.” Id. If there

is no dispute that the defendants were acting within their discretionary authority, as

is the case here, the plaintiff bears the burden of showing they are not entitled to

qualified immunity. Id. at 1099. “To do so, [Plaintiff] must allege that [Defendants]:

1) violated a constitutional right; and 2) that the right was clearly established at the

time of the alleged violation.” Dickinson, 833 F. App’x at 271.

Although “the defense of qualified immunity is typically addressed at the

summary judgment stage of a case, it may be . . . raised and considered on a motion

to dismiss.” St. George v. Pinellas Cnty., 285 F.3d 1334, 1337 (11th Cir. 2002).

“Generally speaking, it is proper to grant a motion to dismiss on qualified immunity

grounds when the ‘complaint fails to allege the violation of a clearly established

constitutional right.’” Corbitt v. Vickers, 929 F.3d 1304, 1311 (11th Cir. 2019)

(quoting St. George, 285 F.3d at 1337).

Here, the Estate alleges the Defendants violated Campbell’s Eighth

Amendment rights. “It is well settled that prison officials must take reasonable

measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates, and a prison official violates the

Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment [only] if the

official is deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate

who suffers injury.” Marbury, 936 F.3d at 1233 (citations and quotations omitted).

As discussed above, the Estate has plausibly alleged that the Defendants violated

Campbell’s Eighth Amendment rights. And, at the time of the events giving rise to

this case, “the state of the law gave the defendants ‘fair warning’ that their alleged

conduct was unconstitutional.” Corbitt, 929 F.3d at 1312. And “materially similar

case[s] ha[d] already been decided.” Id.; see also Dickinson, 833 F. App’x at 271

(discussing Hale, 50 F.3d at 1583–85 (evidence showed the sheriff “knew that

inmate-on-inmate violence was occurring on a regular basis during . . . periods of

overcrowding” but failed “to classify or segregate violent from non-violent inmates,

. . . adequately train the jailers, and adequately supervise and monitor the inmates.”))

and Marsh, 268 F.3d at 1028–29 (the Eleventh Circuit held that the plaintiff's

allegations established the sheriff's liability for her deliberate indifference to the

plaintiff's constitutional rights because “it is an unreasonable response for an official

to do nothing when confronted with prison conditions . . . that pose a risk of serious

physical harm to inmates.”)).

In the FAC, the Estate plausibly alleges facts that, if true, establish that the

Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity. The Estate alleges that the

Defendants were aware of the widespread violence and danger at Bullock at the time

of Campbell’s assault and death on November 9, 2020, were responsible for fueling

those conditions and allowing their subordinates to do the same, and failed to protect

prisoners such as Campbell from the reasonably foreseeable violence that resulted.

As of at least 2001, it was “clearly established in this Circuit that it is an unreasonable

response for an official to do nothing when confronted with prison conditions . . .

that pose a risk of serious physical harm to inmates.” Dickinson, 833 F. App’x at

274. See also Marbury, 936 F.3d at 1234. Thus, Defendants “had ‘fair warning’

that their alleged failure to correct the known inmate-on-inmate abuse at the jail

violated a clearly established constitutional right.” Dickinson, 833 F.App’x at 275.

Accordingly, the Defendants have failed to show their entitlement to qualified

immunity based purely upon the facts pled in the FAC, which must be treated as true

at this stage. The Defendants’ motions to dismiss this claim based on their claimed

entitlement to qualified immunity are thus due to be denied. The Defendants may

raise the qualified immunity defense again at the dispositive motion stage.

2. Count Two – Eighth Amendment – Deliberate Indifference to Medical

Needs

In Count Two, the Estate alleges that Jones and Lamar were deliberately

indifferent to Campbell’s serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth

Amendment. Specifically, the Estate alleges that Jones and Lamar knew that

Campbell “was in serious need of medical treatment after being attacked, and failed

to obtain medical treatment for him or to take steps to warn others that Mr. Campbell

needed medical attention.” (Doc. 30 at ¶ 121.) It also claims that they “delayed

providing any medical treatment to Mr. Campbell” and that this delay “resulted in

his death after being brutally beaten and stabbed by a fellow inmate.” (Id. at ¶ 122.)

But in other places of the FAC, the Estate alleges that certain “unknown correctional

officer(s)” watched the attack while Campbell was bludgeoned to death and took no

action and provided no assistance and did not take Campbell to the infirmary. (Id.

at ¶¶ 29–36.) Jones and Lamar move to dismiss, arguing the Estate has failed to

state an Eighth Amendment deliberate indifferent to a serious medical need claim

against them.

It is well established that prison personnel may not subject inmates to “acts or

omissions sufficiently harmful to evidence deliberate indifference to serious medical

needs.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976). “To show that a prison official

acted with deliberate indifference to serious medical needs, a plaintiff must satisfy

both an objective and a subjective inquiry. First, a plaintiff must set forth evidence

of an objectively serious medical need. Second, a plaintiff must prove that the prison

official acted with an attitude of ‘deliberate indifference’ to that serious medical

need.” Farrow v. West, 320 F.3d 1235, 1243 (11th Cir. 2003) (internal citations

omitted). “[D]eliberate indifference has three components: (1) subjective

knowledge of a risk of serious harm; (2) disregard of that risk; (3) by conduct that is

more than mere negligence.” McElligott v. Foley, 182 F.3d 1248, 1255 (11th Cir.

1999).

It can be a violation of the Eighth Amendment for a correctional officer to be

deliberately indifferent to an inmate’s “serious” medical need. Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582

U.S. 120, 148 (2017); Farmer, 511 U.S. at 835. The “official must both be aware of

facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm

exists, and he must also draw the inference.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837. Deliberate

indifference requires “the knowledge of necessary treatment coupled with a refusal

to treat properly or a delay in such treatment.” Howell v. Evans, 922 F.2d at 712,

721 (11th Cir. 1991). “Whether a prison official had the requisite knowledge of a

substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways,

including inference from circumstantial evidence, and a factfinder may conclude that

a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was

obvious.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842. Accordingly, because “a finding of deliberate

indifference requires a finding of the defendant's subjective awareness of the

relevant risk, a genuine issue of material fact exists only if the record contains

evidence, albeit circumstantial, of such subjective awareness.” McElligott, 182 F.3d

at 1255 (quoting Campbell v. Sikes, 169 F.3d 1353, 1364 (11th Cir. 1999)).

As to Campbell’s medical condition during and immediately after the attack,

the FAC factually alleges certain “unknown correctional officer(s)” watched the

deadly assault and the brutal injuries that he suffered, did not provide Campbell with

any assistance or care, did not notify anyone of Campbell’s injuries, and did not take

Campbell to the infirmary. Thus, according to the FAC, it was only the unknown

officers who had knowledge, subjective or otherwise, of Campbell’s actual medical

condition. While the FAC makes a conclusory allegation that Jones and Lamar were

aware of Campbell’s serious medical needs, the FAC makes no factual allegations

supporting it. Indeed, the FAC makes no allegation that Jones or Lamar were

present, or that they were ever told of it while Campbell was still alive. In fact, the

FAC alleges that the unknown officers told no one. A necessary component of any

Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference claim is knowledge. Here, the FAC fails

to factually support it, at least with respect to Jones and Lamar. While Count Two

vaguely alleges that Jones and Lamar were aware of Campbell’s condition, the

allegation is conclusory, void of detail, and contradictory to the Estate’s factual

allegations against the unknown officers. As such, Count Two fails to state an

Eighth Amendment claim against Jones and Lamar and is therefore due to be

dismissed.

3. Count Three – Wrongful Death

Count Three is a state law claim brought under Alabama’s wrongful death

statute. See Ala. Code § 6-5-410. The Defendants argue that this Court should elect

not to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the claim since they are entitled to

dismissal of the two federal claims found in Counts One and Two. As the Court is

not dismissing Count One, the Defendants’ supplemental jurisdiction argument is

moot.

The Defendants argue in the alternative that they are entitled to state-agent

immunity. “Under Alabama law, [s]tate-agent immunity protects state employees,

as agents of the State, in the exercise of their judgment in executing their work

responsibilities.” Brown v. City of Huntsville, Ala., 608 F.3d 724, 740 (11th Cir.

2010) (quoting Ex parte Hayles, 852 So. 2d 117, 122 (Ala. 2002)). However, “state-

agent immunity do[es] not immunize [Defendants] from liability under state law if

they violated [a person’s] constitutional rights.” Taylor v. Hughes, 920 F.3d 729,

734 (11th Cir. 2019). Moreover, the Alabama Supreme Court has stated that the

determination of state-agent immunity is a fact-intensive question generally fit for

the summary judgment stage, not the motion to dismiss stage. See Ex parte Ala.

Dep’t of Mental Health & Mental Retardation, 837 So. 2d 808, 813–14 (Ala. 2002)

(it is a “rare case involving the defense of [State-agent] immunity that would be

properly disposed of by a dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6)”) (quoting Ex parte

Butts, 775 So. 2d 173, 177 (Ala. 2000) (quoting Patton v. Black, 646 So. 2d 8, 10

(Ala. 1994))). So “unless the inapplicability of all the Cranman exceptions is clear

from the face of the complaint, a motion to dismiss based on State-agent immunity

must be denied.” Odom v. Helms, 314 So. 3d 220, 229 n.3 (Ala. 2020) (referencing

Ex parte Cranman, 792 So. 2d 392, 405 (Ala. 2000)).

“[I]n pleading a claim against a State agent, a plaintiff's initial burden is

merely to state a cause of action against the defendant.” Id. The Estate has done so

here. “The plaintiff need not anticipate a State-agent-immunity defense by pleading

with particularity a Cranman exception.” Id. Nonetheless, the Estate appears to

have alleged facts supporting the application of the first Cranman exception “which

provides that a State agent shall not be immune from liability in his or her individual

capacity ‘(1) when the Constitution or laws of the United States, the Constitution of

[Alabama], or [the] laws, rules, or regulations of [Alabama] enacted or promulgated

for the purpose of regulating the activities of a governmental agency require

otherwise.’” Ex parte City of Montgomery, 272 So. 3d 155, 167 (Ala. 2018) (quoting

Cranman, 792 So. 2d at 405). The Eleventh Circuit has held that if a state official

“potentially” violated an individual’s constitutional rights, state-agent immunity is

unavailable as an affirmative defense under this exception. See Taylor v. Hughes,

920 F.3d 729, 734 (11th Cir. 2019) (holding defendants are not immunized from

liability under state law if they violated constitutional rights); Foster v. Maloney,

785 F. App’x 810, 818–19 (11th Cir. 2019) (holding “plausible” deliberate

indifference to serious medical needs claim stripped officials of state agent immunity

for state law claims).

In Count One of the FAC, the Estate alleges that all Defendants violated

Campbell’s Eighth Amendment right to protection from physical assaults by other

inmates. Because the Estate does not allege that any of the named Defendants were

directly involved with Campbell’s death, the Estate proceeds on a failure to protect

theory of liability to establish a causal link between the ADOC officials and the

alleged constitutional violation. The Court has already concluded that the Estate has

plausibly pled such a claim and, therefore, the Estate has pled enough facts to satisfy

the first Cranman exception. As a result, the Court need not discuss the second

Cranman exception.

The Defendants are not entitled to dismissal on grounds of state-agent

immunity with respect to the constitutional violation set forth in Count One. They

are, however, with respect to Count Two since the Court has already concluded that

Count Two fails to state a claim against the Defendants under the Eighth

Amendment for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, it is

ORDERED that the Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss (Docs. 39, 41) are

GRANTED in part and DENIED in part as follows:

(1) To the extent the Defendants seek dismissal of Count Two, the Motions to

Dismiss are GRANTED;

(2) To the extent the Defendants seek dismissal of Count Three as premised

upon the same constitutional violations which form the basis of Count

Two, the Motions to Dismiss are GRANTED;

(3) The claims against “unknown correctional officers” are DISMISSED.”

(4) With respect to Count One and the failure-to-protect claim in Count Three,

the Motions to Dismiss are DENIED. These remaining claims shall

proceed against Defendants Jefferson Dunn, Patricia Jones, and David

Lamar.

DONE on this the 9th day of August, 2023.

R. AUSTIWAIUFFAKER, JR.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

> Generally, fictitious party pleading is not permitted in federal court absent very limited

circumstances. The Estate should expeditiously proceed in determining the names of those

correctional officers who were present at the time of the assault and timely add them to the lawsuit.

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